Webinar Replay: Removing Barriers to Access — DRM-Free EBSCO eBooks™

By introducing DRM-free e-books to your collection, you can eliminate obstacles in your students’ research path. Users can save, print, and download e-books without restriction and with no additional sign in or software required.

In a recent Library Journal webinar, the EBSCO eBooks Product Development Team discussed how they developed DRM-free e-books to provide end users with unlimited access, a simplified user experience, accessibility improvements and the broadest and most flexible acquisition options for librarians.

What’s involved with developing a DRM-free product? EBSCO worked with both publishers and librarian advisors to deliver a large-scale DRM-free offering. EBSCO conducted market research across library segments and collected data from a Library Journal survey that examined student experiences with e-books in an academic setting. The results of the survey concluded that the DRM-free e-book model is preferred by students and 74% of students believe there should be no restriction on library e-books.

Publisher Targeting & Outreach: EBSCO Collection Development Librarians evaluate all potential publisher partners for quality, subject relevancy and scope of content. To build the DRM-free offering, EBSCO Collection Development Librarians started by reviewing which content publishers were already making e-books available DRM-free. They also identified which impactful University and Academic Presses were not readily available in DRM-free, but would be excellent fits for this model. Once our librarians finalized a target list, our Publisher Relations team began working with our publisher partners to make all or some of their content available DRM-free.

The results of the survey concluded that the DRM-free e-book model is preferred by students and 74% of students believe there should be no restriction on library e-books.

DRM-free Collections: After commitment from publishers, the Collection Development Team started building DRM-free collections based on the following areas:

Broad Subject Focused Collections – These improve the browsing experience for DRM-free e-books with collections including Arts & Humanities, Social Science, Science & Technology, Medical and Business and Finance.

Purchasing & Downloading: Finding DRM-free e-books is seamless with “DRM-free” designations found in both the ECM and GOBI® platforms. For the end user, downloading through the EBSCOhost® platform provides unlimited full e-book or chapter downloads, as well as unlimited printing, saving, or copy/paste. In addition, there are no additional logins or software required, no proprietary formats, no need to enter an Adobe ID and files can be transferred to any device.

What makes EBSCO’s DRM-free offering unique? EBSCO offers the most flexibility for libraries and the widest selection of content. Other DRM-free offerings are either limited to a single publisher’s platform or limited to chapter-level delivery. That means libraries have to use multiple publisher platforms and aggregators to meet their full collection needs. EBSCO offers both DRM-free and DRM-protected e-books, and gives librarians flexible purchase options including 1U, 3U, and CAM in addition to DRM-free Unlimited User. Customers can even add DRM-free titles to DDA profiles or upgrade single use titles to DRM-free where available. Users can download e-book chapters, sections, or complete DRM-free e-books in two clicks, saving them time and giving them full autonomy over how they use your library resources.